- Alberto Contador was coming down with something at the finish of the Tour, and states that he "was no longer the strongest rider on the team." We also learned today that the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) has opened an investigation against Contador related to his alleged involvement with the Operation Puerto affair. This overturns the UCI's earlier decision to acquit Contador of any involvement in the case.
- Floyd Landis will be riding in the Leadville Trail 100 Mountain Bike Race this weekend. Lance was scheduled to appear, but at this point seems to have backed out. Floyd will have to settle for racing against Lance's coach, who had been training to compete against him at the race.
- Another nail in the coffin for the Astana team: Craft, their apparel sponsor has cancelled their contract with the troubled team. This follows an announcement last week that their bicycle sponsor BMC dropped them. Vinokourov continues to claim innocence.
- The up and coming Slipstream Sports/Chipotle team has added Magnus Backstedt to their squad. He joins David Millar, Dave Zabriskie, Christian Vandevelde, Julian Dean and Danny Pate in what is looking to be a very strong team. The Slipstream team is being built around a very strong anti-doping environment. They are hoping for wild-card invitations to the 2008 Paris-Roubaix and Tour de France with the eventual goal of securing a Pro Tour license in 2009.
- German team T-Mobile heads into this weekend's Deustchland Tour unsure of continued sponsorship. There is a press conference scheduled for August 9th at which it is expected T-Mobile will announce whether they will keep supporting the team.
Some of you probably took advantage of the long Labor Day weekend to take a long bike ride (not me, I had a nasty cold). Floyd Landis took a long ride, too, participating in the Shenandoah Moutain 100 . Reports are that he got to the race early, hung out with the locals , chewed the fat , had some beer and signed some autographs. He hung around after the race as well. Somewhere in the middle of all of that, he got third place in a very tough race. I have to agree with Harlan Price (who took 2nd place at the SM100) that Floyd must love the sport if he keeps showing up at events like Leadville and Shenanhoah Mountain. Maybe he picks up a little bit of press coverage, but these are fringe events that the mainstream media largely ignore. Some may say that he is schmoozing fans, but that's not going to help his trial end in his favor. Sounds to me like he's just an ordinary guy who loves to ride hard and party hard afterwards. He hasn't gone into hiding, he's up front,...